Scuttlebutt 11: from SDSR to Pearl Harbor, with a stop at CVA-01 along the way...

Modern systems integrate propulsion and every major electrical load, use far more efficient machinery and controls, and can distribute redundant generating capacity to preserve capability after damage or during maintenance.

A short technical aside contrasts compact civilian seabed-mapping sonar with the computing power, sensitivity, and array scale available to a nuclear attack submarine.

The CVA-01 manpower debate becomes a lesson in right of reply, causal sequence, and legitimate disagreement over the same documents.

Only indirectly in the reading offered here: the carrier-centred strategy was cut first, and the associated personnel reductions then made revival harder, though Edward Hampshire reasonably gives the reverse causal link more weight.

Before the CATOBAR question, the discussion explains why a two-carrier fleet may still need additional flight decks, potentially in the form of amphibious assault ships.

A speculative conversion sketch explains why adding catapults and arresting gear could demand more hull volume, power generation, and extensive recommissioning.

Not necessarily; it might have made the dreadnought race too expensive for Germany, reduced the naval threat perceived by Britain, and changed the diplomatic conditions under which Britain entered the war.

Britain's alignment with France and hostility toward Germany are explained as changing strategic calculations shaped by imperial rivalry and the German fleet challenge.

Italy, because the treaties elevated it to parity with France, constrained its rivals, and protected it from Britain's overwhelming superiority without requiring Italy to match their naval investment.

There was a contingency grounded in Japanese doctrine, but its composition and launch depended on the first waves destroying both primary targets and returning enough serviceable aircraft; the missing American carriers made launching it too risky.

Mitsuo Fuchida's recollection records a perspective shaped by hindsight and doctrine, rather than an infallible account or a wholesale fabrication.

No to the small battlecruisers, whose protection and mission fit would be poor; yes to developing triple 15-inch mountings and standardizing on an improved 15-inch gun across the battle fleet.

Nelson and Rodney are reimagined as fast, fully armoured F3-style capital ships built around triple 15-inch mountings.

No single gun must answer every threat: larger main guns can serve long-range and bombardment roles, while layered defenses of rapid-fire smaller guns, lasers, electronic warfare, and missiles handle drones.

Drone range and maritime geography make small swarms more dangerous in harbours, canals, and narrow straits than against a fleet operating far offshore.

Land-attack and air-defence missiles illustrate why designers should judge the balance of the complete weapons suite instead of demanding that every system answer every threat.

Probably the Hawkeye, because the small British requirement made an indigenous aircraft expensive and a shared NATO type offered scale and interoperability, especially if France adopted it too.